The 6-day schedule of the U.S. Open began last night, with GMs
Yermolinsky and Shabalov entering the fray. Daniel Fernandez won
clear first in the Collegiate and Daniel Yeager, Julian Landaw and Scott Low were co-champs in the Denker, with Yeager topping on tiebreaks. Look for a full report on the Denker by Jonathan Hilton. In the traditional schedule of the U.S. Open, four players maintain perfect scores: IMs Joseph Bradford and Michael Mulyar, Nicholas Schoonmaker and Kalin Nonchev. Mulyar and Bradford both played slashing games to earn their spot at the top of the crosstable:

Nicholas Schoonmaker was Black in the following position, in which White just played Qxf7, which seems to exploit Black's weak back rank. Can you find his response?

Schoonmaker played Qxf1! and White resigned because Rxf1 loses to Rxf7 and Kxf1 loses to Rxa1+(Hide Solution)

The final 4-0, Kalin Nonchev defended well against Lester Van Meter before getting the chance to execute his own attack.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Haskel drew top-seed Doug Root on board one.

Daniel Fernandez dominated the first ever Collegiate Championship with 5.5/6, a full point ahead of the field. This is Daniel's second national title in less than a month--he won the U.S. Class Championship two weekends ago. Can he make it three? Daniel is registered for the five-day schedule of the U.S. Open , which begins tonight.